[2] As his work gained recognition, Balzac began corresponding with a Polish baroness named Ewelina Hańska, who first contacted him through an anonymous 1832 letter signed "L'Étrangère" ("The Stranger").

Although Balzac's La Vieille Fille (The Old Maid), 1836, was the first such work published in France,[5] the roman-feuilleton gained prominence thanks mostly to his friends Eugène Sue and Alexandre Dumas, père.

[7] Balzac wanted to dethrone what he called "les faux dieux de cette littérature bâtarde" ("the false gods of this bastard literature").

[8] He also wanted to show the world that, despite his poor health and tumultuous career, he was "plus jeune, plus frais, et plus grand que jamais" ("younger, fresher, and greater than ever").

He based the second book on a story his sister Laure Surville had written called "La Cousine Rosalie" and published in 1844 in Le Journal des enfants.

His desire stems in part from an earlier contest in which the adulterous Baron Hulot had won the attentions of singer Josépha Mirah, also favored by Crevel.

A peasant woman with none of the physical beauty of her cousin, Bette has rejected various marriage proposals from middle-class suitors who were clearly motivated by her connection to the Hulots, and remains unmarried at the age of 42.

He showers her with gifts, and soon establishes a luxurious house for her and M. Marneffe, with whom he works at the War Department (Bette joins them in their new home, to serve as an excuse for the Baron's visits).

In the years between that story and La Cousine Bette, he became the Count of Forzheim; in a letter to the Constitutionnel, Balzac described how Marshal Hulot gained this title.

The presence of Crevel and Marshal Hulot – among others – in La Cousine Bette allows a continuation of each character's life story, adding emphasis or complexity to earlier events.

Although Vautrin's presence in La Cousine Bette is brief, his earlier adventures in Le Père Goriot provide instant recognition and emotional texture.

The world of Parisian nightlife is quickly brought to mind with the inclusion of several characters from Les Comédiens sans le savoir (1846), and Bianchon appears – as always – when a doctor is needed.

One passage explains that "elle ressemblait aux singes habillés en femmes" ("she sometimes looked like one of those monkeys in petticoats");[28] elsewhere her voice is described as having "une jalousie de tigre" ("tiger-like jealousy").

She amuses herself by mocking her lovers' devotion, and this wickedness – not to mention her gruesome demise – has led some critics to speculate that she is actually the focus of Balzac's morality tale.

[62] If Balzac's goal was (as he claimed) to write a realist novel from his "own old pen" rather than mimic the style of Eugène Sue, history and literary criticism have declared him successful.

[65] Most critics consider the moralistic elements of the novel deceptively complex, and some point out that the roman-feuilleton format required a certain level of titillation to keep readers engaged.

[67] Balzac's trademark realism begins on the first page of the novel, wherein Crevel is described wearing a National Guard uniform, complete with the Légion d'honneur.

[69] Bette's residence is on the opposite end of the social spectrum, in the impoverished residential area which surrounded the Louvre: "Les ténèbres, le silence, l'air glacial, la profondeur caverneuse du sol concourent à faire de ces maisons des espèces de cryptes, des tombeaux vivants."

The same is true of the Marneffe home at the outset: it contains "les trompeuses apparences de ce faux luxe" ("the illusory appearance of sham luxury"),[71] from the shabby chairs in the drawing-room to the dust-coated bedroom.

("She is losing her hair and teeth, her skin is like a leper's, she is a horror to herself; her hands are horrible, covered with greenish pustules, her nails are loose, and the flesh is eaten away by the poisoned humors.

Pointing to the nuance of plot and comprehensive narration style, Stowe suggests that the novel "might in happier circumstances have marked the beginning of a new, mature 'late Balzac'".

As one critic puts it, Victorin's decision marks a point in the novel where "the scheme of right versus wrong immediately dissolves into a purely amoral conflict of different interests and passions, regulated less by a transcendent moral law than by the relative capacity of the different parties for cunning and ruthlessness.

Her flirtation with prostitution is sometimes considered more egregious than Valérie's overt extortion, since Adeline is soiling her own dignity in the service of Baron Hulot's infidelity.

[89] Adeline's Catholic mercy, on the other hand, fails to redeem her husband, and her children are similarly powerless – as Victorin finally admits on the novel's last page.

Balzac's study of masculinity is limited to the insatiable lust of Hulot and the weak-willed inconstancy of Steinbock, with the occasional appearance of Victorin as a sturdy patriarch in his father's absence.

Her domination is tempered by maternal compassion, but the couple's relationship is compared to an abusive marriage: "Il fut comme une femme qui pardonne les mauvais traitements d'une semaine à cause des caresses d'un fugitif raccommodement."

The conflict between Baron Hulot and the perfumer Crevel mirrors the animosity between the aristocracy of the Ancien Régime and the newly developed bourgeoisie of traders and industrial entrepreneurs.

Although he despised the socialist politics of Eugène Sue, Balzac worried that bourgeois desperation for financial gain drove people from life's important virtues.

("You are quite mistaken, my angel, if you suppose that King Louis-Philippe rules us ... supreme above the Charter reigns the holy, venerated, substantial, delightful, obliging, beautiful, noble, ever-youthful, and all-powerful five-franc piece!

Stephen Holden of The New York Times commented that the movie "treats the novel as a thoroughly modern social comedy peopled with raging narcissists, opportunists and flat-out fools".